12/12/95

Roy Summerford (summero@mail.auburn.edu)

AU CHAIR ENDOWED IN HONOR OF LATE DR. BURIS BOSHELL

AUBURN -- The Birmingham-based Diabetes Trust Fund has endowed an eminent scholar chair for diabetes research and education at Auburn University in honor of Birmingham physician and Auburn alumnus Buris R. Boshell, who died Dec. 9.

The Diabetes Trust Fund has contributed $600,000 to create a permanent source of funding for the faculty position, which will focus on diabetes, obesity and metabolic diseases and conditions. The university will seek matching funds from the state under the Eminent Scholars Act to raise the endowment to $1 million. If state matching funds are unavailable, the endowment will support up to two distinguished professorships.

AU faculty are conducting diabetes-related studies in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the schools of Pharmacy and Human Sciences. Many of the health-related projects are collaborative efforts with the University of Alabama Medical Center. Provost Paul Parks said location of the eminent scholar chair would be secondary to finding the best qualified candidate once the endowment is in place.

Boshell graduated from Auburn with a degree in agriculture in 1947. The Marion County native studied veterinary medicine at Auburn for two years and medicine at the University of Alabama for two years before transferring to Harvard, from which he earned a medical degree in 1953.

After six years of postgraduate work in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism at Harvard, he joined the faculty of the University of Alabama Medical Center, where he was instrumental in establishing the Diabetes Research and Education Hospital as the nationŐs first public hospital for diabetes. After retiring from the UA Medical Center as medical director of the Diabetes Hospital in 1989, he built the Boshell Diabetes and Endocrine Center at Medical Center East in Birmingham and was director of that facility.

Boshell was a former president of Alabama Diabetes Association and was a director of the American Diabetes Association. He was a presidential appointee to the National Commission on Diabetes and authored or coauthored several important books on the disease.

Auburn awarded Boshell an honorary doctor of science degree in 1984 in recognition of his accomplishments. Boshell served for several years on the AU Research Advisory Council, and he was a member of the national campaign committee for Campaign Auburn, a six-year comprehensive campaign to raise $175 million in private support for the university by Dec. 31, 1996.

The Birmingham physician founded the Diabetes Trust Fund in 1970 to raise funds for research, treatment and education of diabetes and related disorders. The fund also supports service programs, awards scholarships and fellowships for professional study and disseminates information to increase public awareness of diabetes.

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